Access prevented

Press, 9 February 1983, Page 3

Access prevented

Dr Gwenda Lewis (above) was to give evidence yesterday morning before a Planning Tribunal hearing about access for the disabled into city buildings and along city streets.

But she and her wheelchair were unable to negotiate the two flights of steps to the Planning Tribunal rooms in Kilmore Streets, and so she could not appear to give her evidence. Dr Lewis has been wheel-chair-bound since 1954, when she caught poliomyelitis while working as a missionary and an anaesthetist in India.

Since then, she has fought for better access for the disabled in Christchurch, and was to appear at yesterday’s hearing as a member of the Christchurch Co-ordinating Council for the Handicapped. She is also chairman of the Disabled Persons Resource Centre in Worcester Street. The council and Mr Frank Chisholm appeal against a Christchurch City Council decision not to include in its District Scheme Review two sections of the Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act dealing with the provision of access to public buildings and on city streets for disabled persons.

Mr Chisholm said there was no recognition in the city’s District Scheme Review of the needs of the disabled.

There were various provisions in the by-laws for buildings to have such access, but these mainly relied on New Zealand Standard 4121, which was a code of practice only, and was therefore not obligatory and did not have to be followed, he said.

In the event, the tribunal accepted Dr Lewis’s written evidence, even though she was unable to present it. She agreed with Mr Chisholm that there were too many loopholes in existing planning provisions, so that all too often access for the disabled was not provided. The Christchurch City Council countered that Mr Chisholm’s suggested additions to the District Scheme would only make the scheme more complex, and would do nothing to benefit the physically disabled. Instead of adding such general access provisions to the District Scheme, the interests of the disabled would be better served by specific building design codes, said Mr B. C. Bluck, the council’s building engineer.

Mr Bluck is co-ordinating comments on proposed amendments to New Zealand Standard 4121, “Code of Practice for Design for Access by Handicapped,” and he is also convener of a committee drawing up design rules that will revise sections of Standard 4121 and the Disabled Persons Act regarding disabled access.

The Local Government Act, 1981, had precluded the issue, of a building permit where a proposed building or alteration would not comply with the access provisions of the Disabled Persons Act, he said.

“The District Scheme could not take the matter any further,” Mr Bluck said.

The hearing was before Judge Skelton (chairman), Mrs N. Johnson and Mr J. F. McKenzie. The tribunal reserved decision.

The Planning Tribunal has been based on the first floor of the “Star” building annex in Kilmore Street for the last two or three years. The first floor is the only floor inaccessible to the disabled.

The building was erected in 1968, well before legislation required new public buildings to be accessible to the disabled.